Johnny America

 

The Lit­tle Bitch

by

“Ka-the-leen!” Lu­cio DiLoren­zi yelled for every­one in the world to hear. He
was out on the side­walk with Stan­ley Miller, the pock-scarred man from New
Jer­sey who lived up­stairs in the sin­gle-res­i­dent oc­cu­pan­cy build­ing. Both of
them were hud­dled up, thick as thieves, in front of Lucio’s café, Café
DiLorenzi.

“Ka-the-leen,” he called again for her to come on down the hill.

She was go­ing to the café any­way. It’s the nicest place on the street. She
walked to­wards them like they were get­ting her on her way to some­where else and
maybe she could stop for a minute.

“We need to talk to you about some­thing,” Lu­cio said. He had a dirty dishrag
tied at his waist and it flapped in the breeze.

Then Stan­ley said, “Sor­ry to both­er you. I know you got a lot go­ing on.”

She squint­ed at them both, then shrugged.

The girl was sev­en­teen but she could have been twen­ty-five. No­body knew
any­thing about her ex­cept she lived at the Be­lAir, which was a home for girls
who got there for one rea­son or an­oth­er. She smoked too many cig­a­rettes, and in
the sum­mer, when she moved to the street, she al­ways wore red lip­stick and
showed off her skin­ny legs. She laughed a lot back then, but by the fall she
was cov­ered up and qui­et. Thin, as if she’d missed a meal.

It was De­cem­ber now and cold out on the side­walk. The wind from the San
Fran­cis­co Bay swooped down in frigid gusts, push­ing win­ter in­to the sidewalks.
What leaves there were blew off the trees and then were scat­tered along the
pavement.

But it was odd to see Lu­cio talk­ing with Stan­ley. Just two days earlier
Stan­ley told Kath­leen he didn’t like or re­spect Lu­cio DiLoren­zi at all. He said
Lu­cio was filthy and dis­gust­ing and Stan­ley was nev­er go­ing to eat any­thing in
the café any­more, not even a cup of tea. He had ac­tu­al­ly seen Lu­cio pick a spoon
up off the floor and put it back in the con­tain­er of spoons meant for stirring
cappuccino.

“He’s stopped show­er­ing,” Stan­ley said. “Stopped shav­ing, too. The guy’s
gonna self-destruct.”

But there they were, Stan­ley Miller and Lu­cio DiLoren­zi, out on the
side­walk, chat­ting away like they had a mil­lion things to say to each other.

She was go­ing to the café any­way be­cause she was hun­gry and by that time of
the day Lu­cio start­ed giv­ing away the pas­tries. The lunch crowd was long gone
and the of­fice clerks stopped com­ing in for cof­fee so, if he had time,
some­times, he would make Kath­leen a sand­wich. He’d just bring it over and set
it down at her ta­ble. It wasn’t like she was poor and couldn’t pay for it
her­self. Not like Stan­ley who had prac­ti­cal­ly agreed to be poor for the rest of
his life. She just did what she had to do to get out of this situation
eventually.

“Come on, Ka-the-leen,” Lu­cio said. He opened his arms up like it was a
great big in­vi­ta­tion and then he put a large, cal­loused hand on her back. “We need
to talk with you about something.”

A lot of what Stan­ley had said about Lu­cio DiLoren­zi was true. Lu­cio had
gained fif­teen pounds in the last two months af­ter re­turn­ing from Italy, the
great­est coun­try in the world. He’d gone to see his fam­i­ly and when he came
back every­thing was dif­fer­ent. He start­ed work­ing all the time and his face
didn’t look boy­ish any­more, the way it had back in the sum­mer. In the sum­mer he
parked his mo­tor­cy­cle right up on the side­walk un­til the city made him move it
to the street. The days were longer then and he closed up ear­ly to ride down to
the wharf. The clubs there were cool and once in a while he took Kath­leen. She
held on­to his jack­et and felt the sound and the speed and the wind fly through
her whole self and for a while she knew what it was like to be alive for only
one mo­ment at a time. She had a taste for things like that and he liked seeing
the awe in her eyes, so even if they couldn’t go in­side the bars and clubs they
sat at pic­nic ta­bles and lis­tened to the bands and the drunk­en men in suits
trip­ping out to their cars as the bay rip­pled and smacked the rocks beside
them.

That went on for a cou­ple of weeks. But Kath­leen was in the busi­ness of
turn­ing every­thing to her ad­van­tage. And Lu­cio was mar­ried, and once she understood
these things about him: mar­ried, café, mo­tor­cy­cle — the awe was completely
gone, like the sum­mer, and then, like fall.

And now Lu­cio was al­ways smack­ing around that dish tow­el like he was going
to get a lit­tle crazy. The cus­tomers were drop­ping off so fast he got maybe a
hand­ful of lunch or­ders and the days of peo­ple hang­ing out were ba­si­cal­ly over.
His face was wider now and loose a lit­tle bit and he worked man­i­cal­ly, piling
up the chairs and scrub­bing the floor be­tween the ta­ble legs with cones set up
around a bucket.

Stan­ley would not set foot in­side the café so he stood in the door­way with
his hands jammed in­side his par­ka. “We got­ta talk,” he said.

Stan­ley lived right up­stairs in a tiny room with no TV. There was a bathroom
down the hall that he had to share with every­one else in the build­ing. And
Stan­ley was old, forty-some­thing, or fifty, Kath­leen thought, so it was strange
he didn’t even want a job so he could move to some place bet­ter. He act­ed like
it was all just dandy eat­ing noo­dles in his room and check­ing out library
books. He liked to study. Stan­ley stud­ied his­to­ry. His­to­ry is the best subject
in the world, he said, be­cause it is an ac­cu­mu­la­tion of knowl­edge. It gives you
the tools to work out prob­lems go­ing on now. He got this idea like be­ing hit
with a brick in the li­brary one day.

When Stan­ley used to come down to the café it was just to take a break from
all that study­ing. Then, just two days ago Stan­ley told Kath­leen that Lucio
DiLoren­zi was one of the prob­lems he was work­ing on. He was try­ing to figure
out Lucio’s brain, be­cause some­thing was se­ri­ous­ly wrong with that guy. Stanley
be­lieved he would find the an­swer in the col­lect­ed vol­umes of The Sto­ry of
Civ­i­liza­tion, by Will Du­rant. They were stand­ing up the street, out­side the BelAir
while Kath­leen smoked a cig­a­rette. The Be­lAir re­quired its young women to hold
a job or go to school. There were cer­tain oth­er rules. It wasn’t great. In
fact, the Be­lAir wasn’t even good, but it was a place you re­al­ly want­ed to hang
on to. The ad­min­is­tra­tion didn’t al­low men up­stairs and they didn’t allow
loi­ter­ing out front, but there was an aw­ful lot the ad­min­is­tra­tion didn’t know
about a young woman.

Kath­leen had want­ed to be po­lite about it. She tried get­ting Stan­ley to move
on down the street. She re­al­ly didn’t feel like point­ing out that some­one could
be keep­ing an eye on her just then. She wasn’t in a po­si­tion to break any
rules. All the same he was go­ing on and on about Will Du­rant. She lis­tened to
him and let it go. Stan­ley re­ferred to Will Du­rant a lot, and she wasn’t sure
about any of the facts Stan­ley came up with. The bot­tom line was al­ways, go
read Will Du­rant. The fact that one man could of­fer the world so much, and all
any­one had to do was sim­ply read his words, made it ob­vi­ous that everyone
need­ed to stop every­thing they were do­ing and read, read, read, day in, day
out, un­til the world was filled with bet­ter peo­ple, ex­act­ly like Stanley.

“It’s just mon­ey,” Kath­leen said, two days ago, part­ly to get him to stop
talk­ing. “He thought his par­ents would lend him some mon­ey to keep the café
go­ing, but they didn’t. That’s all.”

That was true. But to­day, out on the street with both of them there, looking
at her, wait­ing for her to make a move, she wished she hadn’t said anything.
Peo­ple as­sume things, and peo­ple talk. She hiked her back­pack high­er up on her
shoul­der and looked in­to Stanley’s face. He had an old stab wound on his left
cheek. It was a red, jagged squig­gle a cou­ple of inch­es long but it went deep
enough so his face sunk in there. Kath­leen had seen the scar so many times it
didn’t both­er her. She had spent so much time walk­ing around town with Stanley
and hear­ing all about how he was hopped by a guy out­side a club in Jer­sey City
and how he won this tax-free set­tle­ment that meant he didn’t have a work a day
in his life ever, that Kath­leen bare­ly felt sor­ry for him any­more. He was
se­ri­ous. What­ev­er was go­ing on with Lu­cio, Stan­ley didn’t like it one bit.

“Sure,” she said. She went right in­side the café. Ivan was there. He’d been
a reg­u­lar for a cou­ple of months. He was play­ing chess with a kid she had never
seen be­fore. The kid was maybe fif­teen and Ivan was an old­er man. He always
wore the same navy hat pulled down on his white hair. He raised his eye­brows at
Kath­leen. She dropped her bag on the chair next to him and slid on­to the bench
against the back wall. Ivan nev­er bought any­thing in the café but Lu­cio let him
stay. He said hav­ing Ivan play chess was bet­ter than hav­ing an emp­ty café.

“Be com­fort­able, Ka-the-leen. We need to talk to you, Stan-lee and me.”
Lu­cio wiped his face with his hands and then he wiped his hands down the front
of his shirt. He danced around the café wav­ing his dishrag at every­one. “Let’s
be open,” he said.

“No,” Stan­ley said. He was still stand­ing at the door and wouldn’t come
in­side. “There’s cus­tomers in there,” he said, even though it was just Ivan and
the boy.

“Too many sto­ries, Kath­leen.” Lu­cio stopped and stood right in front of her,
spit­ting out his words. “Stan­ley called me a liar.”

She looked over at Stan­ley but he wouldn’t look back. His eyes were fixed on
the street.

She had an idea what this was all about, but she had to think about it
first.

“Can I have a Coke?” she asked.

The truth was she knew ex­act­ly what it was all about, but she could not
be­lieve that Lu­cio want­ed to talk about it. She looked at Ivan.

Ivan looked at Stan­ley and then at Lu­cio. “I have no idea what you are
talk­ing about,” he said. Then he looked back at the boy who was grin­ning, and
then he picked up a pawn and made a move.

“Cer­tain­ly, Kath­leen.” Lu­cio went be­hind the counter, be­hind the wall of
straws and spoons and the gi­ant black­board where he wrote out the daily
spe­cials with col­ored chalk. He took a tall glass and filled it with ice,
opened a re­frig­er­a­tor case and re­moved a can of Coke. Then he came out with it,
set­ting down the glass and open­ing the can, and pour­ing out the so­da over the
ice.

She want­ed him to stop. She smiled, say­ing, “thank you,” but he kept on
go­ing. He tore open the straw and put it in the glass.

“For you,” he said.

She opened her back­pack and start­ed go­ing through it for her wallet.

“No, no, no,” he said. “This is for you.”

She found her wal­let and took out a dol­lar. She want­ed to pay for it. She
want­ed to show them all that she had a dollar.

“No, no, no,” he said again. “You are the queen.”

She set her bag back down. She didn’t know what Lu­cio was up to.

He put his boot up on the chair across from her. “Now, we’re gonna talk
about these sto­ries,” he said.

“I haven’t told any sto­ries,” she said. She bit the straw with her teeth.

“Oh, I think you’ve been telling sto­ries,” he said. He wasn’t smil­ing now,
he was look­ing at Ivan and the boy and then back at Stan­ley, like he owned this
place and every­body in it.

“What kind of sto­ries?” she said.

Lucio’s face wrin­kled, but he held still. He paused, look­ing fast at his
peo­ple. And then he held out the dishrag, open­ing his arms. “Like I fucked
you,” he said slow­ly, “and then I left you.”

Stan­ley poked his head in the door. “Look, I don’t care if you slept with
her,” he said.

“You know,” Ivan said sud­den­ly, lift­ing his head, “she’s a very smart girl.”

He had played chess with her a cou­ple of times.

“Any one of you play chess with her,” he said, “I put my mon­ey on the girl.”

She had her back against the wall and didn’t say any­thing. She didn’t want
to talk about that. She tried to think about what some­body ought to say, what
would Jack­ie O. say, at a time like this? That was the on­ly ad­vice her aunt had
giv­en her as she packed her in the car. Think. What would Jack­ie do?

Kath­leen drummed her fin­ger­nails on the ta­ble top. “What hap­pened to you in
Italy?” she said, quickly.

Lu­cio squint­ed, and then he start­ed slap­ping his dish tow­el on his knee.
“Ma­ma mia,” he said. “This is my life.”

“It’s not the same,” she said. She looked at Stan­ley and Ivan. “You came
back here and you’re so se­ri­ous all the time.”

“Ma­ma mia,” he said again, slap­ping down the rag.

“Lu­cio, Lu­cio,” Stan­ley said. “The poor girl can’t sit in peace and have a
Coke?”

“That’s my busi­ness,” he said, get­ting loud again. “I want to know what the
fuck­ing sto­ries you’re telling Stan­ley. Look at him. He won’t even come
inside.”

“What hap­pened in Italy? Some­body didn’t give you mon­ey so you got­ta make a
liv­ing all of a sud­den?” As soon as she said it she was scared, like somehow
just talk­ing about it would make every­thing good dis­ap­pear. She doubted
se­ri­ous­ly if Jack­ie O. had ever found her­self in a sit­u­a­tion like this. And it
wasn’t just the sand­wich­es and the pas­tries that might go away. She already
knew that, at sev­en­teen, sit­ting there day af­ter day. It was go­ing to take so
much more to get the hell out of there.

Stan­ley poked his head around the door again. “Every­body knows, Kathleen.
Every­body on the whole street knows what’s he’s do­ing to you.” He stepped in
now and he reached out an arm for her. “It isn’t right. He’s not right,
Kathleen.”

Lu­cio swung around to look at every­body. “What I don’t un­der­stand,” he said,
“is I come to this coun­try and I say, this is beau­ti­ful, I want to live here.
What can I do? I love peo­ple. I have a café. I say hel­lo to every­one. I say,
come in, eat, stay, be hap­py. Ivan,” he shout­ed, “didn’t I say that to you?”

Ivan had been look­ing at the chess­board. He raised his head and looked up
cross­ly at Lucio.

The boy was al­ready sit­ting up straight. He had stopped play­ing chess and
had his hands on his lap.

“Let’s be hon­est,” Lu­cio said, not wait­ing for an answer.

Ivan turned back to the board.

Lu­cio slapped the dishrag on the ta­ble. “I fucked you,” he said loudly.

“She’s sev­en­teen,” Stan­ley said.

“And then I left you.” Lucio’s voice was so loud now, and it seemed he
didn’t mind or even care how fool­ish he was acting.

Ivan shook his head. He was go­ing to leave.

Kath­leen reached for her back­pack and slid it up over her shoulder.

“Hey,” Lu­cio said, “this is not some game.”

Ivan and the boy were scoop­ing up chess pieces and putting them back in the
box.

Lu­cio shook his head like he didn’t want them leav­ing. “What am I doing
here?” he said.

“It’s all right,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”

“She says it doesn’t mat­ter.” All at once he slapped the rag and it flew out
his hand. “What doesn’t mat­ter?” He was yelling loud­er now and kicked the chair
in­to the ta­ble. “My café doesn’t mat­ter? Ma­ma Mia.”

She held very still. She wasn’t the kind of girl who could run away.

Stan­ley was right next to her and he held out a hand, but Lu­cio took hold of
her arm and squeezed hard so it burned. He start­ed shak­ing her. “Or that I
fucked you?”he looked straight in her face. “Is that what doesn’t matter?”

“No, that doesn’t mat­ter,” she said.

“Let her go,” Stan­ley said.

Lu­cio dropped her arm and start­ed pick­ing up the chair by the legs. “No­body
will come here any­more,” he said. “Is that what you want?” he said to Kathleen,
but turned to look at everyone.

Ivan and the boy were stand­ing there with their coats on, watching.

“Come on,” Stan­ley nod­ded at Kather­ine to step outside.

She took her back­pack, and had to go around Lucio.

“The bitch!” Lu­cio yelled. “The lit­tle bitch!”

She made it out to the street, fol­lowed by Stan­ley. Ivan and the boy were
al­ready head­ed up the hill. She watched for a sec­ond as the backs of their
coats dis­ap­peared in­to the Tenderloin.

Stan­ley and Kath­leen walked for a lit­tle bit, and then they turned the
cor­ner so the café was no longer in sight. She stopped and slid her backpack
off her shoul­der. She fished around for cigarettes.

“I’m re­al­ly sor­ry about that,” Stan­ley said. “I tried to stop him.”

“Yeah,” she said. It took her a cou­ple of tries to get the cig­a­rette lit.

“Can I walk you to your bus?”

“You don’t have to,” she said.

“Nah, I want to,” he said.

She in­haled and nodded.

“Boy, I hope you get out of here,” he said.

“Yeah.” They walked for a while and then they were there.

“You’re young,” he said, fi­nal­ly. “You know. You’re just a kid.”

“Yeah,” she said, though it didn’t mean a thing.

“You on­ly get so many chances to start over, Kathleen.”

She threw her cig­a­rette out in­to the street and wait­ed. Pret­ty soon there’d
be a bus.

Filed under Fiction on October 14th, 2010

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Reader Comments

Yet an­oth­er mas­ter­ful piece of writ­ing by Car­olyn Kegel! It’s al­ways such a plea­sure to read her beau­ti­ful­ly flow­ing, well-craft­ed work, full of love­ly lan­guage and quirky char­ac­ters. She has a tru­ly unique and im­por­tant voice, and I al­ways look for­ward to see­ing more of it.

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